Art & MusicGreek → English
Chorister
/ˈkɔrɪstər/noun
A singer in a choir, especially a boy or girl in a church choir.
The Greek roots
χορός
khorós
dance, band of singers
Literally: “one of the dancing band”
Follow a root:χορός6 words
The story of the word
χορός meant a band of dancers who sang while they moved; in Athenian tragedy the chorus was choreography before it was harmony. Latin took it as chorus, Old French applied it to the part of the church where the singers stood, and English added an agent ending to name the singer himself. Early spellings run queristre and quirister, which is why cathedral documents still say quire.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 14th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
choruschoirchoreographycarol
In a sentence
Two hundred choristers filed in under the west window.
She sang as a chorister at Wells before her voice broke into something else entirely.